


The Search

by burnt_oranges



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Big Bang, ATLA Big Bang 2020, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Zuko (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27362392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_oranges/pseuds/burnt_oranges
Summary: When Zuko is 13, Ozai declares that there are no conditions under which Zuko can return home--Zuko is banished. Permanently. However, Iroh offers Zuko a source of hope in a different quest: to find his mother, Ursa.Zuko spends three futile years searching for his mother. Then the Avatar returns to the world.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 146
Collections: ATLA Big Bang 2020





	The Search

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the ATLA Big Bang 2020! thank you to [constallayetions](https://constallayetions.tumblr.com/) and [aiyah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiyah/pseuds/aiyah) for being expert [consultants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellayetion/pseuds/constellayetion) and brain-stormers! special thanks to aiyah for reading over and editing this chapter at the last minute! thank you to [tori](https://rideboldlyride.tumblr.com/), [kat](https://the-bisexual-disaster.tumblr.com/), and [em](https://geekinthecorner.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing! and last but not least: thank you so much to my artists, [millie](https://just-a-little-in-over-my-head.tumblr.com/) and [rainie](https://maybeinmine.tumblr.com/) for providing beautiful art for this story! please check out all of their tumblrs and ao3's :D
> 
> partially inspired by this tumblr post by captainkirkk: https://captainkirkk.tumblr.com/post/184055844267/au-where-zuko-realises-very-early-into-his
> 
> CW: angst, grief, trauma, mentions of canon-typical child abuse, coping with trauma, some brief passive suicidal ideation in chapter 2, ozai's not a good parent; if you need me to tag anything else, just let me know!

The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors sits alone at one of the low barrel tables in full warrior paint and armor, her arms crossed, her face stern. Jee stands over her, badly playing the pipa. Uncle looks at Zuko meaningfully because everyone else is busy serving other tables—or in Jee’s case, displaying an apparent wish to be choked out on the ship’s deck by a master in the art of fan combat.

Zuko sighs. “Do you want tea?” he says.

“No,” she says.

“Still here to see if we’re hiding firebenders in teapots?” Zuko says.

“Yep,” she says.

“Great,” Zuko says. “I’ll get you…nothing. As usual.”

This has been their routine for the last week.

When Zuko’s ship—also known as the Jasmine Dragon, famous for their custom teas and delicate puff pastries—had first docked at one of the villages on Kyoshi Island, they were immediately accosted by the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors for proof of their Ba Sing Se citizenship and also their sailing permit.

“To be greeted so personally is an honor,” his uncle had said, beaming, and then showed her all thirty of the crews’ forged Ba Sing Se passports.

“Lee, huh,” she said, squinting at Zuko’s face.

“That’s what it says, doesn’t it,” Zuko said irritably.

“Nephew, is that how we speak to guests?” his uncle said, frowning, and then turns back to her. “Would you like a cup of tea, my dear? We have acquired a new blend with slow roasted—”

The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors—the Jee of the Kyoshi Warriors? the Lieutenant?—finished perusing their permit, which was honestly the only legitimate paperwork they had. “No,” she said. “I’d rather search your ship.”

“By all means,” Uncle said because they had thoroughly gotten rid of anything incriminating six months ago. Zuko still mourned for the three quarters of their spice rack that had been a casualty to Jee’s annual contraband deep-clean. The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors--or as Zuko had started calling her in his head, the Lieutenant--had, of course, found nothing, but had then developed the infuriating hobby of sitting at their best table on their ship-turned-tea shop and scowling at all the customers.

Now Zuko returns to the kitchen, where Uncle immediately sends him back out with hot pastries for the Lieutenant (”Her name is Suki,” Uncle says; Zuko pretends not to hear him), which is only worth it for the look on her face when she feels the moral obligation to pay despite not consuming any of it.

The village leader (Oraji? Omaji?) sits several tables away from the Lieutenant, tapping his foot to the music with a suspicious look on his face.

“Another egg custard tart?” Zuko says to him, because while the village leader doesn’t trust them or their paperwork, he has apparently made an exception for Uncle’s baking.

“If they’re still available,” the village leader says, and Zuko pours him more tea.

“Uncle saved the last one for you,” Zuko says.

“That’s very nice of your uncle,” the village leader says with the same tone that he might use if someone was sticking splinters under his nails.

There is a long silence where they stare at each other and then Zuko says, “Are you sure you don’t know—”

“For the last time, young man, I don’t know anything about prisons in the fire colonies! Or the Chin Village prison! Or any other prison you would care to name!”

“It’s really important,” Zuko says through gritted teeth.

“If it’s so important, then why not get yourself arrested and take a look yourself,” the village leader suggests.

Zuko blinks.

“ _No_ ,” Uncle says warningly on his way to serve tea to another table.

“Why _is_ it so important?” the Lieutenant pipes up because she’s a nosy asshole. “Are you looking for someone?”

“I—of course not!” Zuko lies.

The Lieutenant does not look convinced. “If you’re asking about the fire colony prisons, I assume you’re looking for an earthbender,” she says, thoughtful.

“And if I was?” Zuko says stiffly.

The Lieutenant’s face unexpectedly softens, and everything inside Zuko recoils—he doesn’t want her sympathy, he didn’t fucking ask for it, he doesn’t need it. “The fire colony prisons are famously secure,” she says.

“I know that,” Zuko snaps because he had broken into several of them in his search for the Mo Ce prison and had the scars to prove it.

“This person must be really important to you,” the Lieutenant says.

“Yes,” Zuko says tightly. “They are.”

“I wish I could offer more help,” she says. “Maybe if I knew who they were—”

“That’s none of your business,” Zuko snaps.

“Geez, your uncle is right,” she says, putting her hands up. “You’re kind of like a little boar-q-pine.”

Zuko’s mouth drops open in full-offense, and the village leader guffaws, slapping the barrel table and making the tea cup shake. 

“How dare you compare me to _livestock_ ,” Zuko says, even further offended when the Lieutenant snickers into her fan.

“What about a prickle snake?” the village leader suggests.

“That’s even worse!” Zuko says hotly.

“A skunk fish?” the Lieutenant says, which is when Zuko chooses to strategically retreat to the kitchen - where no one except Uncle will dare to laugh at him.

#

The day before they’re due to set sail, Zuko crouches in a tree overlooking the Kyoshi Warrior compound and watches the Lieutenant practice fighting stances in the training yard. Her face is bare, and she only wears the tight green under-layer of her armor. He finds this unsettling after solely seeing her in warrior dress—like a dragon sloughing off its skin to reveal something surprisingly small and vulnerable. 

It’s fall, the air crisp and cool, but she’s dripping with sweat. Zuko’s wooden mask is hot and airless, and he can hear himself breathing, hoarse and a little stuffy. When the Lieutenant turns her back toward him, he springs from the tree to tackle her to the ground. She makes a noise of surprise and tries to fight back, but he’s pinned her to the dirt with his weight, kneeling on the small of her back where he’s already jammed her hands. She tries to lift her head to look at him but doesn’t have the mobility. 

“Who are you?” she demands.

Zuko doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls out the portrait-necklace of his mother from the neck of his tunic and dangles it in front of her face.

“What—I don’t know her,” she says. “She’s Fire Nation, why would I--”

Zuko shakes the necklace emphatically and then kneels harder on her hands.

“Hey, watch it,” she snaps. “Okay, look, I might know something.”

Zuko waits.

“There’s a name,” she says quietly, so quietly that he has to lean forward to hear her better. “There’s a name that I’m not supposed to know.” She’s almost inaudible, and Zuko places a hand on the back of her neck so she can’t even think about biting him. “The name is—” she says, and Zuko stops breathing, his grip loosening just the tiniest bit. 

Then she’s pulling a knife out of her pants, and Zuko has to leap away to save the portrait and himself from getting stabbed. Fuck, she tricked him into changing his weight distribution in order to throw him off, and he _fell for it_ like he was eight-years-old again and sticking his entire hand in the cooking fire because Azula told him she dropped his favorite turtleduck in it.

Zuko pulls his swords off his back, and their weapons clang together so loudly that Zuko is afraid the Kyoshi Warriors will be alerted even though they’re supposed to be off hunting. The Lieutenant is one of the best fighters he has ever seen, and it’s everything he can do to not get his head chopped off. He manages to swipe the knife out of her hands before he realizes that it’s actually the _fan_ that’s most dangerous, because she actually almost slits his throat with it.

“You’re good,” she says and Zuko actually kind of feels good about himself for a second before she sweeps his legs out from under him and dumps him on his ass. “But I’m better.”

She’s got him backed up against the tree, fan coming at his face, and his entire body locks up. He can’t fucking breathe, but he wrenches his body to the side anyway, his abdominal muscles screaming, and he runs for it. Zuko can hear her following him, her panting breaths, as she chases him through the grass in her bare feet. He flees down a gently sloping hill, towards a forest, the grass and trees washed in an over-saturated golden-yellow—like the yolk of an egg—from the light of the dying sun.

Zuko runs, but he doesn’t feel connected to his limbs, can hardly think, and as he approaches the edge of the forest, he feels a deep foreboding that radiates from the pit of his stomach to the bottom of his skull. 

“Hey, you can’t go in there!” she shouts from behind him. “That’s Kyoshi’s Forest! There are--!” but her voice cuts out as if a barrier has been lowered between them.

It’s too late—Zuko is already inside the borders of the forest, and when he turns back to look at her, she seems far away, a forlorn figure in the distance backlit with gold. He faces forward, shivering, surrounded by the thick trunks of trees. He looks up, up, up, and can’t see the sky—the branches form a dense canopy that blocks out almost all light. It’s cold and dark like the beginning of winter in the Fire Nation.

Zuko looks behind him once more to find that he can no longer see where he came from—more trees have appeared behind him, primordial in their hugeness, and the forest is silent and still. Fear floods his body like a drop of red dye in water, and he stops it at the bottom of his throat, tightens his jaw, forces it all back down. Zuko takes one of his swords off his back and slices an X on the tree next to him because everything looks the same. Nothing immediately happens, so Zuko wanders deeper into the forest and marks trees, his stomach tight and aching with alarm.

He walks for a long time in no particular direction. Uncle had once told him of an endless fire lily field that he had encountered long ago in the Fire Nation—Uncle had walked and walked, the lilies growing so profusely that he couldn’t avoid crushing them underfoot, his shoes accumulating a thick layer of yellow pollen. The sun burned huge and orange in a preternaturally blue sky, but the air was cold and thin. Uncle spent what he thought was two days in this field but when he returned home, he found he had been missing for two weeks.

A tiny white lop-eared rabbit scurries across Zuko’s feet and then almost immediately disappears into the trees. Zuko doesn’t know how long he’s been in this forest. He would bet all of Umee’s life savings that at this very moment, Uncle is drinking a cup of hot tea and sampling Risa’s most outrageous culinary experiments that she makes specifically for music night. Zuko can see his breath in the air, white and vaporous, escaping out from beneath the edges of his mask. 

“I couldn’t tell you when I entered that field, and when I left,” Uncle had said, thoughtful. They had been playing a game of Pai Sho and eating mochi, leaving rice flour fingerprints all over the game pieces. Zuko doesn’t remember how old he was at the time; it must have been before Mother left because Father hadn’t yet banned the cooks from making mochi. It was her favorite dessert. “Surely there must have been some sign,” Zuko had protested. Uncle bit into a piece of mochi and then pretended to wipe his fingers on Zuko’s shoulder, which made Zuko giggle and twist away. “The problem is, Prince Zuko,” Uncle had said, cleaning his fingers with a damp cloth. “Sometimes a person gets lost and doesn’t notice until it’s too late.”

Zuko marks yet another tree, and that’s when he notices little white flickering lights floating in the branches of the trees, drifting across his limited field of vision. He sheathes his swords and tilts his head to look up at the small clouds of lights, his breath catching uncomfortably in his throat. Uncle would have loved to see this. Zuko reaches to cup one of the little white lights in his gloved hands, moves it closer to his face, and peers in between his fingers. All he can see is a glowing white softness. He tilts his mask slightly to tug off one of his gloves with his teeth. Zuko delicately touches the little light with the pad of his finger, feels the smallest of warmths, like a tiny flame, and then—the light goes out. He gasps and feels such an immediate and intense remorse that tears prick the back of his eyes. 

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut and sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, holding it until his tears recede—then he pulls his mask down. He walks onward, ignoring the lingering tightness in his throat, the slight trembling of his lower lip. 

The trees grow further and further apart, and he starts marking every tree that he passes without exception. The beginnings of frost coat the ground, and Zuko shivers harder, racking his brain for firebending techniques that Uncle said were important—when he sees an animal so immense that it takes him several seconds to recognize it as a cat-deer. It’s at least three times his height, so tall that it doesn’t even seem to notice him as it lumbers past, its hooves sinking deeply into the frozen ground. Zuko stays very still until the cat-deer is out of sight and then sags against a tree, sliding down until he’s sitting in the dirt. 

He thunks his head back against the tree, sweat dripping down the sides of his face under the mask while the rest of him freezes. The little white lights glimmer above him, pale and indistinct in the gloom. Zuko levers himself to standing and squints at the tree he last marked in order to decide what direction to walk. He blinks rapidly and moves closer, touching the bark with his hand, because there’s—nothing. No cuts, no indentations. He checks a second tree, a third, a fourth, and there is not a single mark, no sign that he had ever been there. 

Zuko stands there in the darkness of the forest, shaking, and he thinks: Azula was born lucky, and he was lucky to be born.

“Hello?” Zuko says, his voice oddly muted. “Anyone there?” The forest is so quiet, he can hear his heartbeat in his ears. The trees are so still. 

“What the fuck do you want from me?” Zuko yells, but it comes out like a whisper, the trees swallowing up all the sound. He kicks the tree, hard. A cat-owl the size of a lion-vulture flies out of the branches, meow-hooting an alarm. Zuko chases after it, running as fast as he can. Surely it knows the way out of the forest, surely it—

The forest opens up into a tiny glade with a pool that glows a bioluminescent blue. The largest fox Zuko has ever seen—the size of a moose-elk—drinks from the pool. The cat-owl lands on its back and looks down at Zuko with cold, flat eyes. Zuko stops, every muscle in his body locking up. 

The fox slowly lifts its head and looks directly at him with eyes the color of the pool. The moment is suspended—a drop of rain clinging to the edge of a roof, the soft shushing sound of summer rain when Zuko was very small and his mother would hold him in her lap and they would watch the storm pass through—and then the fox lowers its head to resume drinking.

Zuko hasn’t thought of that memory in a long time. 

He can feel moisture trickling down his cheeks, steaming in the cold air, and it’s—it’s ridiculous how winded he feels, like he’s fought a duel instead of just being a stupid little coward. He doesn’t know where he is, but this is the first clearing that he’s seen, the first sign of water, and he has to move _forward_. Zuko tightens his jaw and strides to the edge of the pool, almost panting with fear, his hands clenched at his sides. 

The fox is even more enormous at this distance—the top of Zuko’s head doesn’t even reach its shoulder. The pool radiates softly, unevenly, with little densities of electric blue light like small fireflies scattered across the blackness of the water. Zuko hesitates and then dips his bare fingers into the pool. He touches his fingers to his tongue, tasting salt. 

Zuko kneels and sees the face of his mask in the water: blue, grotesque, very white teeth. It transforms into Azula’s face, and he gasps. She looks like when she was six-years-old, grinning, gap-toothed, when she still sometimes used to sleep at the end of his bed at night because she was afraid of the dark. He thinks—he thinks of Azula crouched over an engine, sometimes, when their father wasn’t around, Azula giving him her share of mochi, Azula crying because Zuko is leaving with Mother for a day at the markets and she can’t come—Zuko yanks off his mask completely and now it’s just his own face: pale, scarred, solemn. His chest feels laid open, like his heart was jerked out of his chest and then screwed back in wrong. 

When Zuko looks up, he finds the fox has moved closer, so close that he is centered in between its two massive front paws. Its fur is a spectrum of grays in the dimness, and he can see the long expanse of its chest and underbelly. It has faded away in some places along its stomach, its legs, places of transparency where its body used to be. Zuko stops breathing. He touches the patch of blankness closest to him, and it feels incredibly cold, like the air at the top of a mountain.

The fox seems to increase in size, in height, growing taller and taller until he can hardly tell what he’s seeing. The gray outline of the fox is scarcely distinguishable from the canopy of the black tree branches, little white lights dotting its fur. Zuko stands and backs away, struggling to retie his mask with fingers numb with cold. He inhales sharply when he trips into the side of the pool, the stone edge hitting hard just above the backs of his knees, and he pitches backward into the water, scrabbling uselessly at the air. 

Zuko sinks immediately, like a rock in a pond, unable to claw his way to the surface. He runs out of air but when he reflexively breathes in, he finds that he doesn’t drown—he can still breathe, weighted down with water. He feels soothed, warmer and safer than he can remember being since…since before his mother left? Even then, he remembers constant anxiety, a chronic sense of failure, the burns from his instructors when he wasn’t quick enough. He is so tired. He can’t remember the last time he fell asleep easily, or didn’t have nightmares. Zuko closes his eyes. He drifts.

Zuko knows nothing until he wakes on a dock on the shore of Kyoshi Island. His whole body hurts, like he just went several rounds with Azula. His eyes feel dry and gritty, and his vision is blurred, but he can make out his own ship: darker than the other ships, made of metal where the other ships are made of wood. 

Zuko painfully lifts himself to a sitting position and then, panicked, immediately grabs for his swords. Zuko feels his stomach unknot when he feels the smooth handles of his swords still lashed to his back. He touches his face and is absurdly shocked by the texture of wood. His hand flies to the back of his head, and he can feel the knotted ties, now stiff and tight with salt. 

Zuko cuts the ties with his sword, accidentally catching some of his own hair, which falls into the ocean. He sighs, long and low and tired. He feels—he feels like when he wakes up from dreams about Mother: a little stunned, disoriented, like the birds that flew unwittingly into the glass of the palace windows. Zuko pinches himself on the thigh, hard, and then shakes his head like a goat-dog after a bath. The sunlight is warm on his face. He breathes out slowly, tension draining from his shoulders, his neck; he feels the flickering, tiny flame of his inner fire start to stabilize. 

Zuko is halfway to the ship when he realizes he’s still carrying the mask, and that his Uncle still has eyes. Zuko considers this for a full minute before just shoving it up his shirt. When he walks up the gangplank, he is immediately mobbed by his uncle and half his crew. 

”Where the fuck have you been?” Jee says, hands on his hips like a fishwife. “We’ve all been worried sick!”

“Hey, don’t include me in this,” Risa says, pointing a finger at Jee. “He steals all my egg custard tarts, I thought that maybe I’d finally have a break.”

“Ooh, ooh,” Umee says, like a student trying to get the instructor to call on him. Zuko has never actually attended a school with other children, but Azula made fun of those kinds of students all the time. “Don’t forget the micromanaging! I was actually able to pick a direction? For us to sail? Without someone up my ass about it?”

Zuko glares at all of them. “Put a label on the tarts if you don’t want them to be eaten,” he says to Risa. “Also, Umee, you wouldn’t know your ass from your mouth.”

“Language,” Uncle scolds even though Zuko has definitely heard Uncle say things that would make even Jee’s ears burn. “Lieutenant Jee asked you a very simple question.”

“I didn’t think I had to when they’re clearly baked for the customers,” Risa says dryly. “Also, I know you hoard them, don’t lie.”

“I do _not_ hoard them,” Zuko says hotly. “I store them—”

“Zuko,” Uncle says, and everyone goes quiet because for once, Uncle does not look happy. “Where have you been?”

“I uh—” Zuko hadn’t actually considered this question in his walk to the ship. “Almost drowned?”

Uncle eyes his swords. “Why were you in the water?”

“I got…pulled under?” Zuko says, voice going up at the end. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to watch out for undertows?” Jee says furiously.

“I was careful,” Zuko protests

“You were absolutely not careful,” Jee says sternly. “You didn’t even tell anyone where you were going.”

“We looked everywhere for you,” Umee says, unsmiling, which is how Zuko really knows he’s fucked up.

Zuko winces.

“What were you doing so close to the water?” Uncle says, narrowing his eyes. “I cannot imagine you wanted to swim with your swords.”

“I was fishing,” Zuko says and then bites the inside of his lower lip.

“With your swords,” Iroh says skeptically.

“…yes,” Zuko says.

Umee gasps. “You were diving for seashells again, weren’t you,” he says, gleeful, because he likes to go snooping for Zuko’s hidden cache of desserts and then find other embarrassing things in the process.

Zuko wants to die inside at the idea that the crew knows about his secret seashell collection. “Absolutely not,” Zuko says so fervently that it only has the effect of making Umee and Risa smirk at him; Jee rolls his eyes. Uncle’s face is unreadable.

“Aw, no need to be embarrassed,” Umee coos. “Although I think you should switch to pearl diving, at least that’s actually lucrative—”

“Shut up, Umee,” Zuko says. He has successfully hidden his collection of pearls in with his underclothes and has zero intention of selling them.

Umee opens his mouth to most likely say something egregious, and Uncle says, “Nephew, you should go change your clothes.” Umee closes his mouth in disappointment, and Zuko smirks at him.

“Of course, Uncle,” Zuko says and then quickly leaves before Umee can say something that’ll make Zuko have to fight him.

When Zuko returns to his room, he fumbles in his shirt for the portrait of his mother. It takes him several tries to open it because his hands are shaking so much. He breathes out in a rush when he sees that the portrait is only a little water-stained around the edges, blurring his mother’s hair but leaving her face untouched. Zuko doesn’t know what he would have done if the portrait had been damaged—he had commissioned it in the short period of time between the public proclamation of his banishment and when he was actually legally required to leave the Fire Nation.

Zuko places the necklace with his collection of pearls, which he dives for every year on the day of his mother’s disappearance. Before—before everything, his mother had taught Lu Ten, Azula, and Zuko how to dive for pearls, and they would hold contests to see who could retrieve the largest and most lustrous pearl. Mother was always designated as the judge. Azula and Zuko would sometimes get into screaming fights over the results until Lu Ten finally got sick of it and dumped one of them in the water. But then later he would make all of them ice cream and—

Zuko feels the familiar yawning chasm of grief open in his stomach. He sits on his narrow bed and knots his hands in his hair, elbows resting on his knees. After Zuko’s banishment, and before they left the Fire Nation, Uncle had dragged Zuko to the Fire Sages for a reading of his energy. They said Zuko’s chi paths were highly disrupted—not only due to the results of the Agni Kai but also due to profound emotional injury. 

Uncle had looked heart-broken. Zuko hadn’t felt anything except very cold and numb, like he had been buried in the snow that Lu Ten had described in his letters when he was still alive and stationed in the Earth Kingdom. 

When they had stood just outside of the Southern Air Temple, and Uncle said, “Your mother is alive,” Zuko had cried for the first time since they left the Fire Nation.

Now the grief has become old and chronic and easily inflamed. Zuko tucks all of it away, like stuffing clothes under the bed. None of it matters. He’s spent three years looking for his mother, and he won’t fail in this goal.

His mother is alive, and he will find her.

**Author's Note:**

> edited to add: in the kyoshi novels, kyoshi finds her animal guide--a fox--in the forest.


End file.
